152 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



subjective, and living under conditions that are unnatural, and 

 such as no civilised Government would approve v^ere the true 

 aim of government to regulate and safeguard the well-being 

 of the subjective race equally with the dominant one. The 

 means of obtaining information on a matter of such importance 

 are not difficult, such as they were a few years ago. In all the 

 native centres schools have been established, and the teachers 

 in them exercise a wide influence among the native popula- 

 tion. The services of these teachers should be employed to 

 obtain special information relating to the younger generation 

 of the native race, just as is done in the case of teachers in 

 the public schools, who are usually employed in the smaller 

 centres of population as registrars of births, marriages, and 

 deaths, and from whom the best information is always 

 available. 



The reports of the enumerators are suggestive and full of 

 interest to those who desire to study the native race. From 

 them it appears that vice and crime are diminishing in most 

 of the native districts. Agricultural work is extending, and a 

 good many natives appear to be devoting more attention to 

 the raising of stock, whilst the opening of Native Land Courts 

 is urged as detrimental to the spread of this work among the 

 natives. At the time of taking the census the general health 

 of the natives was good, although measles, influenza, fever, 

 and other epidemic forms of sickness have raged among them 

 in various places since 1891. Three of the enumerators make 

 reference to the drinking habits of the people, and there is 

 evidence to show that the moral influences which have been 

 brought to bear upon the native race of late years are operat- 

 ing beneficially in many ways. Colonel Eoberts, of Tauranga, 

 one of the enumerators, says, " The Alcoholic Liquors Sale 

 Control Act Amendment Act, passed last session, prohibit- 

 ing the sale of liquor to female natives, is being carried out in 

 a satisfactory manner, and the result is very marked as regards 

 their general conduct and behaviour when contrasted with the 

 past." Mr. Hutchison, S.M., of Masterton, another enume- 

 rator, reports " that drunkenness is not a vice of the Waira- 

 rapa native " ; whilst Mr. Kenny, sub-enumerator for Marl- 

 borough and the Sounds, says, " There appears to be a strong 

 feeling among many Maoris in favour of the strict enforcement 

 of the law prohibiting the sale of intoxicants to Maori women." 

 " I am told," continues the enumerator, " that in Picton the 

 Maori women can obtain drink without difficulty, but not, I 

 understand, from the hotels." It is hard to say whether the 

 natives as a race are a debt-laden people, but those who know 

 them best are aware that little or no foresight is shown by 

 them whenever they have money at their command. To 

 satisfy the wants of to-day appears to be with them, as with 



